Media and the Race for the Presidency

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP

Photo by Gailf548

Last November The WIP and I moved to my hometown—a locale I’ve discovered to be surprisingly diverse and international. Monterey, California is home to universities, schools, military facilities, and institutes of international scope. One such institute, The Panetta Institute, was founded in 1998 by local political hero, Leon Panetta, and his wife, Sylvia. Before he was appointed Director of the Office of Management and Budget by President Clinton, and later as Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Panetta was our Congressional Representative for sixteen years. Most recently, Panetta was a member of the famed Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan research group mandated by the US Government to assess the state of the war in Iraq, which determined “the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.”
Friday, I attended my first Panetta lecture entitled “The Role of the Press in Choosing a Candidate.” The ninety-minute lecture had two parts—a sixty minute conversation moderated by Leon Panetta and thirty minutes of questions from the audience. The guests were author and HDNet News Correspondent Dan Rather and Washington Post News Correspondent and author Bob Woodward. Leon Panetta opened, quoting Edward R. Murrow: “Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.”

Friday’s lecture addressed the obligation journalists have to report the truth, especially in an era where information inundates us daily—from blogs to opinionated talk shows, from internet chatrooms to 24-hour news programming. Leon Panetta commented that news used to be presented in a way that at least tried to assure accuracy. He asked his guests how journalists in this age of instantaneous information could assist the public in making informed choices based on truth rather than spin.

Photo by Jennifer Vargas

On the Presidential Race
Bob Woodward wants journalists to go deep into the biographies of the candidates. According to Woodward, this is the obligation of media on the campaign trail. “If we understand who these people are, then the voters are going to make wise decisions.” According to Rather, the power of the Presidency is the power to inspire—something many of the Presidents he has interviewed in his career have understood. His recommendation: candidates ought to drop the consultants and the television ads, and in borrowing from Woodward’s suggestion, allow the voters the opportunity to get to know them better. Rather admitted “rivers would run uphill before that happens.”
Rather’s comment addresses a key issue in American politics—our candidate’s reliance on political consultants and the journalist’s devotion to the consultant’s activities and talking points. Consultants contribute to the rising costs of political campaigns and are advising candidates on virtually every aspect of campaign strategy. As a result, the scope of information available to reporters is minimized and the voter is left with very little opportunity to either get to know the candidate or to become inspired.
On the State of Media
One member of the audience asked Dan Rather whether the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcast media to present issues of public importance in an equal and balanced manner, should be reinstated. Rather responded No and felt that individual media organizations should invoke their own fairness doctrines. For Rather, the imbalance issue results from the concentration of media ownership. He pointed out that 88% of the major news outlets in this country reside in a handful of people.
Although the airwaves still belong to “We the People,” he reminded the audience that they are being used to amass major profits for media conglomerates. As a result, the commitment to public interest stories is low. Dan Rather considers the news a public trust. In this era of for profit only corporate controlled media, I’m left wondering how media will find its way back to comprehensive journalism without enforcement.
Bob Woodward was asked to comment on declining newspaper readership. He agreed that newspapers are in trouble, but pointed out that “the hand that feeds you is the journalism, not the business and not the format.” Woodward believes the responsibility rests on the journalist to present news and information that is essential to people. He recalled a saying from what he referred to as “the good old days of the newspaper business,” when journalists aspired to write stories that were “bacon coolers”—sitting at the breakfast table with the morning paper in one hand and a fork in the other, and reading a story that is so important, and so relevant, that your bacon gets cold on the fork as you read because it doesn’t make it to your mouth. Stories that dig deep, take on challenging topics, and give the reader the opportunity to experience Wow – I didn’t know that daily over breakfast, were the standard of good journalism.
On the Iraq War
Leon Panetta asked both guests whether the press missed the story on Iraq in the crucial period just prior to the war. Rather and Woodward disagreed on the causes of this historic media blunder. For Rather, it was fear that prevented journalists from digging deep, from asking the questions that should have been asked. Specifically, he felt, it was the fear of being called un-patriotic and not supporting our troops. He contrasted the media’s response in 2003 to today when journalists are much more readily asking the tough questions. It is much easier now that the popularity of the President is down, but in 2003, “when the band was playing” and “the flags were waving,” it was much harder. Woodward attributed the press’s failure to a “lack of imagination.” He included himself in the criticism that editors should have called on the people who analyzed military intelligence to challenge the flimsy evidence about weapons of mass destruction. “We should have looked,” he said simply.
Since it is unlikely corporate media will adjust between now and November 2008, it is up to new media, like The WIP, to address both Bob Woodward and Dan Rather’s concerns. As we develop our international strategy to cover the 2008 Presidential campaign, we will try to include a balanced account of the candidate’s biographies and provide information rather than spin. We hope that our readers will be inspired.